


Dawn Stones

by Milo



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Emetophobia, Gen, Genderfucked stuff, M/M, Mild Gore, Pokemon Death, Possession, Trans Character, childhood crush, mentioned death, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2018-11-01 17:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10927047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milo/pseuds/Milo
Summary: Some drabbles from my roleplay blog. Warnings and such are available on each individual chapter.





	1. Trash Bug

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of memories/character drabbles/possibly rewritten roleplays that I've featured on my roleplay blog. There wasn't really a good place to store them over there, so I decided to post them here instead. While some ficletts can be taken as more generally Guzma related, some are _very_ specifically related to my version and his backstory, so if stuff seems weird that's why.
> 
> These haven't been beta'd since they're just little drabbles, but I have gone back and edited them a couple times.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guzma hangs out on a beach full of trash.
> 
> No warnings apply.

Despite being given explicit orders not to leave the house, he scurries outside and hops the fence. He skirts through the neighbor’s berry fields. Nobody’s around to notice him swipe some Pecha berries off of the trees.

He kicks a rock lying in the road. Today he’s walking along a different branch of the path leading toward the motel near his home. His body is pulsating with excitement; he’s out of the house, he’s _breaking_ a _rule_. And if he gets home in time, it’ll just be his little secret.

It’s not a good idea to stray _too_ far from home, though. Just in case.

He ends up at a small, rocky beach near the motel where he used to play every so often. It’s heavily trafficked by tourists, who leave it little better than a waste dump. Plastic bottles filled with sand, broken sandals, and shiny pieces of trash litter the beach. Someone also, apparently, spilled a drink which smells similar to what his father keeps in the fridge.

“Gross,” he mutters as he kicks sand over it.

A trilling sound catches his attention and he turns to his right. Something darts out from the rocks; a Wimpod. They’re scavengers, he remembers, and this one’s probably planning to eat some of the garbage. When it does just that–which is to say it picks up a gritty watermelon rind–Guzma wrinkles his nose and snickers a little. Its mandibles crunch away at the rind, leaving little pieces of watermelon on the ground, until there’s nothing left.

It skitters across the sand, not seeming to notice Guzma. It makes a beeline for the metal trash bin, which is overflowing with waste, and climbs straight up it, chirping and clicking with glee.

And manages an anticlimactic fall down into the sand when it can’t grasp the black plastic bag. 

The little Wimpod thrashes wildly on its back, legs clawing at the sky and back arching as it desperately tries to turn itself over. 

Guzma watches it jolt upward again and again, each time never quite making it. He takes a step forward, hesitantly, before approaching it. The bug goes completely still.

“…Hey, y’need some help?” he says calmly. 

It plays dead. 

With a laugh, he firmly grasps both sides of the Wimpod and lifts it up from the sand. It squirms out of his grip and plops back down into the sand. But before Guzma can reach out to it, it kicks up a nasty cloud of sand in its wake. Guzma yelps and covers his eyes, sputtering and coughing as he breathes in the dust. A nasty Sand Attack.

In its escape, it dropped something shiny in the sand. Guzma brushes it off and picks it up.

It’s a small chunk of gold.

He casts a glance toward the crevice between the rocks where Wimpod is hiding. It’s doing a terrible job at it, honestly, as he can hear the thing clicking and hissing still. He walks over to the rocks and looks into the crevice. Wimpod hisses loudly and ducks further under the rock.

“C’mon ya dumb wimp, I ain’t gonna eat you,” Guzma calls into the crevice. Wimpod hisses back at him when he reaches in. “What else ya got in there…”

Guzma grasps around at air, fingers brushing some loose grainy pebbles and what feels like potato chip bags. There’s nothing that feels quite like the smooth texture of the gold nugget, however. He strains to reach further in–

“Ow!” he yelps as he’s bitten. 

He rips his arm back out of the hole, dragging the angry Wimpod back with him. It lets go the moment it sees the light. Before it can hightail it to safety, however, he grabs its tail with his free hand.

He holds the Wimpod away from him so it can’t bite him again. Its tiny legs rake the air and it hisses in its best attempt to be ferocious.

“How the heck did ya find this?” Guzma asks, showing it the nugget.

Wimpod hisses and chirps. Guzma glares at it for a couple minutes before realizing that interrogating this bug isn’t going to help him any. He sighs, sets it down, and watches it scuttle back to the hole. It glares at him from the opening.

“Dummy,” Guzma mutters. 

More hissing came from the Wimpod hole.

“Aww, shut up,” Guzma counters. “Nobody cares.”

He sits down on the beach and leans up against a rock. If that Wimpod would just leave, he could go searching in the hole some more…

He digs into his sweatshirt pocket for the Pecha berries he stole earlier and sets them on the sand. Wimpod goes quiet. Its antenna stick out of the hole and twitch in his direction. He narrows his eyes at it.

“Ain’t sharin’ with you, trash bug,” he mutters, taking a bite out of one of them. He absentmindedly looks down at the tiny chunk of gold in his other hand. “Go eat some'a ya trash.”

There’s a yell in the distance that sounds an…awful lot like his father’s voice. Guzma flinches; he’s not supposed to be home until much later. But… He pockets the nugget, and runs across the sand, not caring what he steps on or that the Wimpod was now happily munching away at his forgotten berries.


	2. Nihilego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guzma tries to get Lusamine a Nihilego.
> 
> Warning for possession, vomiting, and general bad times.

Lusamine gave him one task; catch an Ultra Beast. Easy enough.

The Nihilego in front of him wiggles a bit, almost nervously, and Guzma lets out a short laugh. He takes off his sweatshirt and drops it on the ground. This isn’t the first time he’s wrestled a Pokemon, and this thing looks like it’ll be a damn piece of cake. No Golisopod needed.

He charges at it. 

It vanishes.

His fingers rake the air. His eyebrows raise to his hairline. Alright, that…wasn’t supposed to happen. Lusamine hadn’t said anything about these beasts being able to teleport. He glances around, trying to find it. It’s floating behind him, back several feet.

“There ya are, ya little–”

It vanishes again. This time he growls and bares his teeth. But he doesn’t have time to yell at it as something touches his back. And he barely has time to react before it has a firm grip on him.

When the tentacles touch his bare flesh it burns.

He shrieks as the tentacles tighten around his arms and slip down the back of his shirt. It’s like being met with white-hot iron and if he didn’t know better he’d think his goddamn flesh was melting off. He flails his arms around to try and rip the damn thing off of him, but with each move, another tentacle is on him, and soon enough he’s completely restrained by it. His arms start to go numb.

“Madam Prez!” he calls out, getting nothing but an echo of his own voice in response. He looks around for any sign of her. There’s nobody. “Fuck! Lusamine! The Nihilego–!”

The tentacles….are seeping into him. Becoming a part of him. His scream becomes muffled as the hard flesh of the jellyfish merges over his head. His fingers stop moving as the Nihilego’s body enconpasses them. His flailing ceases. But his heart rate goes up. It engulfs the entire top half of his body as he feels the poison take effect.

Something….something is in his head. It’s almost like language but it doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s one voice, and then two, and then ten, and then it’s almost like static–a loud, horrible white noise filling his ears.

He struggles against it, but it’s like hauling a boulder on his back. One of the enlarged tentacles slashes some of the nearby plant matter, crushing it with ease. 

Emotions flood his mind; confusion, rage, fear. It’s all raw as a fresh wound and he wants to lash out. The Nihilego responds, destroying more of their surroundings as it sways Guzma into the landscape. His feet have gone too numb to resist. It leads him, guiding him where it pleases and he has no choice but to obey. It's not him. It's not him who's controlling his boy, his fingers, where his eyes are looking.

His vision is blurry.

In his mind’s eye, memories take shape. Aether Foundation. A large, uncharted desert. A rocky beach on MeleMele. Plumeria's trailer home. Various sets of hands on his body that he can't even put a name to. It all bleeds into him at once; voices, sounds, images, experiences. Po Town. Plumeria. Golisopod. The beach on Hau’oli. His childhood home. His father–

No. 

No, no, no, _no_ –!

“No!!” he yells.

His arms twist under the jellyfish flesh and he reaches for his chest. With all the strength he has, he grasps the connecting bits and pulls. The Nihilego lets out an agonized screech as Guzma pulls it from his body. It takes all he has not to scream again, each pieces of the jellyfish stinging and raking his flesh as he frees himself.

Once freed, he stumbles away from it a few steps. The Nihilego is flailing and screaming. He takes in several heaving breaths. His entire body feels like it had been set on fire and his knees feel nonexistent. They give out under him. Guzma crumples into a heap on the ground, vision still blurry.

Nihilego lets out a shrill cry and charges.

A flash of red light. A familiar loud, ferocious roar. He’s fading from existence as he watches something large and white smash down the Nihilego with a single blow.

...

...

He comes back when something touches him again.

His first instinct is to yell and flail his still-numb arms. When he opens his eyes everything is–weird. It’s colors and shapes and blurry and he has no fucking clue what’s touching him but it’s very large and not Nihilego.

He tries calling for Lusamine again. He doesn’t know what comes out of his mouth, but it’s not words. The voices chattering in his head fill his ears with noise.

The thing grasping him morphs and changes shape before him and he tries pushing it away with his useless hands. It’s grey, then red, then blue, then red again, and from the shape he swears it’s a fucking Buzzwole bearing down on him. He needs to get away, get away _right now_. His skin’s still on fire. He hisses and tries to hold himself but it only makes it worse.

He thinks he falls down, but he's not sure what's up or down right now. His side hurts. He tries to shuffle away on what seems like the ground, the color-changing shape of whatever hellbeast that is approaching him with a slow stride. It's not afraid of him. Hell, it's not even nervous. He tries to shout at it but his words slur.

A familiar, worried chattering comes from the mass.

He knows that cry.

His heart is still throttling his rib cage and all he really wants to do is run the fuck away even with his limbs feeling nonexistent. But, despite everything, he reaches out. His numb hand is met with the smooth, lumpy bug carapace that he’s known more than half his life. 

It’s Golisopod. It’s not an Ultra Beast.

He mutters its name, but more nonsense comes out of his mouth. Is it his mouth or his ears that aren't working?

It pulls him in close.

...

...

What wakes him up next is actually the feeling of bile rising in his throat.

He breaks away from Golisopod’s hold and shakily walks two steps forward before violently vomiting out his stomach contents. He stands there for several more minutes heaving even though there’s nothing left in him to throw up. The ache throughout his body finally kicks in and he hisses loudly as every single movement he makes feels like death. It's entirely possible that he's dying.

Golisopod catches him as his knees buckle again. He takes in deep breaths in through his mouth. Though he can sort of see, his vision still feels wobbly, like the area around him is being tilted back and forth. What’s supposed to be moving and not moving, he can’t tell.

He’s coated from head to toe in sweat; his shirt was soaked thoroughly and his hair clung to his forehead. He shivers violently as another ungodly painful ache tears through him.

“….Hhh……he….help,” he croaks out weakly. “….hhelp…..”

Nobody answers him. Golisopod pulls him in again and he’s too weak to push it away. He sags in its grasp and takes in a few more staggering breaths. The world is still spinning. But there’s nothing left to puke up.

“….Where….where is she….?”

It’s just them in the clearing, as far as he can tell. The wrecked landscape around them was void of all life. He hasn’t a clue where Lusamine’s gone off to. How long had he been out for? Why hadn’t she come looking for him? Surely she would have…noticed…

He licks his lips. They taste like sick with a hint of blood and something disgustingly bitter. The stings on his shoulders and back flash with burning, aching pain almsot as white-hot as when the thing's tentacles still had him in its grasp.

Whether it’s been hours or days, he’s not sure. But his head feels like it’s splitting open and he’s dying for water.

...

...

He spends the next…whatever laying on the icy-cold ground, convulsing, practically frothing at the mouth as the poison still coursed through his veins. Every so often he’d _see_ things and _hear_ things, and he couldn’t tell what was actually a Nihilego and not. The air was filled with alien shrieks and shrill yells that were so eerily almost human that he almost wanted to go after them.

And running away from these things did little more than injure him. The landscape was so dark and still shook. He was pretty sure he had an open wound in his shoulder. He couldn’t actually feel it, but every time he touched it his hand came back red.

He wonders if he’s going to die here.


	3. Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guzma makes a reliable and trustworthy friend.
> 
> Warning: genderfucked thoughts, dysphoria, and all that good stuff.

He’s eight years old when he meets her for the first time.

She’s taller than him, which shocks him because he’s the tallest kid in his class, and her hair is tied neatly into pigtails. She’s the only girl out of the bunch that doesn’t scream and run away when he shows off a Caterpie crawling on his arm--not that it wasn't his aim to send them shrieking. No, instead she shows him the baby Salandit she’s been hiding in her shirt all afternoon.

They make a silent promise not to tell any teachers.

Guzma is thankful that they don’t share any classes together. She doesn’t have to hear _the name_ they call him by. As far as she knows he’s just Guzma, that kid who looks for bugs in the school’s patches of tall grass. 

***

“…Hey, Plumes?”

“Hm?”

“Why do ya like me?” he asks. “You know other people don’t hang out with me ‘cause I’m _weird_ , right?”

They’re at the water’s edge, sitting on a rocky, hidden section of beach that the tourists tend to avoid on principle. It's full of rocks, large and small, and has nothing but Wimpods scurrying around in the sand. They’ve started coming here a lot to look for things hiding in the tide pools and rocks to skip. And nobody ever gives them much trouble for it.

The fact that Plumeria even wants to keep coming here with him boggles his mind. It’s not often that other kids actually want to hang out with him. The other boys won’t approach him for _certain reasons_ , and those that do just want to see his bug collection. But Plumeria likes his bugs and seems to like him just fine.

She throws another rock into the water. It lands with a low plunk.

“So?”

Guzma stares at the water.

“People are gonna say things about ya,” he says. “And…about me.”

“Well they stupid. I don’t care.”

He looks at Plumeria. Her back is facing him as she scoops up some more rocks from the beach. It’s easy enough for her to say that. But…he can’t help but wonder if she would care if the other kids told her that he wasn’t an _actual_ boy, and that he’s been _lying_ to her this whole time about himself.

He feels his stomach go a little sour at the thought. He picks up a large rock next to him and hurls it into the sea.

***

When he’s just barely nine, she _knows_.

Before he ever has the chance to say something about it himself, some stupid kid from one of his classes rats him out. He doesn’t stick around to hear what Plumeria has to say. He runs as fast as his legs can carry him, holes up in one of the showers by the city beachfront, and doesn’t come out. He’s not sure exactly how long he’d been hiding in there, minutes, hours. But soon enough there was a knock at the door.

“Guzma?”

It’s Plumeria. He lifts his head and wipes his red, puffy eyes. He doesn’t want to talk to her. She can’t possibly have anything good to say, and he’s not ready to lose his one and only friend in the whole world. He says nothing, instead resting his chin on his knees. Maybe, just maybe, if he’s quiet she’ll go away…

She knocks again.

“That you in there?”

“Whaddya want?” he finally rasps, if only to make her go away.

“Can I come in?”

“ _No_.”

Silence. He hears the shuffling of her tennis shoes against the concrete. The door jiggles slightly as she sits down and leans against it.

“It true what he said ‘bout'cha?” she asks.

Guzma sniffles and wipes his running nose on his already filthy sleeve. The shower smells musty and disgusting. He feels musty and disgusting. Boys aren’t supposed to cry. _Real_ boys don’t cry. 

“Do you hate me now?” he asks.

She doesn’t say anything. His heartbeat speeds up with every second she just doesn’t say anything. He feels all the more glad that there’s a door between him and her.

“…No,” she says simply.  And then she adds, “And I don’t care about what he said. If y’wanna be a boy, you be a boy. I don’t care.”

It should make him feel better but he just ends up sobbing more. She….shouldn’t be saying this stuff. Nobody’s ever said this stuff. Not his teachers, his classmates, his _parents_ –he’s a screw-up, and that’s that.

“Plumes, I ain’t right,” he says, feeling another wave of tears coming. “I…I…I’m not…” He hiccups. “Don’t that _bother_ ya?”

Another long, thoughtful pause.

“I thought about it,” she begins. “Ain’t like you much different now. Ya still the same Guzma, y’know.” She goes quiet again and he can almost feel the smile in her voice as she says, “If anyone’s got a problem with it, I’ll beat ‘em up.”

That earns her a short laugh from him through the tears. He sniffles some more and rubs at his eyes. 

He unlocks the door.

***

When they’re ten, she leaves. They both promise to write. Neither of them end up doing it, for one reason or another. He forgets, slowly but surely, instead retreating into himself. He goes through the Island Challenge, just like all the other boys. He fails. And no amount of training can make up for this failure, not this time.

When he’s fourteen, he quits school.

When he’s sixteen, shit hits the fan.

He runs.

***

Before they parted, she gave him an address written in her sloppy ten-year-old handwriting. He still had it, tucked away in his bag, after all these years. The pencil had smeared over the paper and it was now heavily folded, torn, and looked pretty disgusting. Her home phone number had worn away ages ago. But the matching place on Ula’Ula was still there; a little trailer on the outskirts of Tapu Village.

It feels a little strange to be here, on her doorstep like this. Truth be told, she’s the only thing left on Alola that even makes it worthwhile to come back, but he hasn’t actually seen her in so long.

It’s just after he’s rung the doorbell that it occurs to him; she might not even recognize him anymore. It’s been so long, and everything about him has changed pretty dramatically. His face, his hair, his body, his _voice_. 

Maybe this isn’t a good idea.

He steps off of the porch and gets a couple feet away before the door unlocks and opens. He flinches and turns back around. A girl with those familiar pigtails is standing in the doorway, looking at him. That’s her. That’s definitely Plumeria.

“…Uh,” he manages to get out.

She blinks once. Twice. Then, her eyes widen in realization and her mouth opens a little.

“… _Guzma_?” she says.

He’s not sure exactly how to respond so he just nods. Plumeria stands there for all of five seconds before charging and flinging herself at him in a tight hug. He tenses before easing up. It’s just Plumeria. It’s okay. He’s safe with her. He can feel the giddiness rising and he grins widely down at her.

“Holy shit, look’it ya, you're taller than me now!” she says with a laugh. “That where you been all this time?”

“…Kinda,” he admits honestly. “It’s a long story.”

She gives him a light squeeze before backing off. Her eyes scan him up and down as if she was seeing him for the first time–and she was, technically. It’s difficult not to keep grinning at the absolute joy in her eyes.

“We’ve got time if ya wanna share,” she says. “But you don’t have to.”

He smiles wider and shakes his head.

“We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”


	4. Sore Loser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guzma encounters a really sore loser.
> 
> Now we're getting more into my personal blog-related headcanons and such. You might notice as I plop more drabbles into here that I've actually send Guzma away from Alola during his teenage years. Something something "Alola wasn't making me strong enough" something.
> 
> Warning for gore, blood, general violence, and some other bad stuff.

Guzma never considered himself a sore loser. Sure, he’d become angry when stuff didn’t go his way. Sometimes he broke things, sometimes he hurt himself. But a match was a match was a match. Not that he’d lost a Pokemon battle in ages.

This guy, however? Very much so sore. 

It’s not usually dangerous. Then again, people don’t normally pull knives on their opponents after a Pokemon battle. And he’s not expecting it until the blade pierces his skin and yanks down his abdomen. He screams. 

His hand’s on the gun in his pocket in seconds and he unloads the entire round into the guy’s torso. The guy says nothing, face contorted into a silent, terrified gasp, and collapses to the floor in a heap. The knife is jerked right back out. It clatters against the cement. Guzma squeezes his eyes shut as tears well up.

“ **_Fucker_ ** ,” he spits at the now very dead thug.

Guzma pants and clutches at his side--which is now in searing pain and bleeding profusely. It soaks through his shirt and sweatshirt. He manages to take three more steps and tries to lean on a nearby pole, but each movement pulls the wound and he grits his teeth to keep himself from screaming again. He’s sweating--oh god, he’s sweating, and there’s so much blood.

Voices. Just outside the door, there are three distinct voices. His eyes dart toward the far end of the warehouse. God, they’d heard the shots, hadn’t they? 

He...He can’t stay here. They’ll find him. And when they do, they’ll do way damn worse than this. He takes a fistful of sweatshirt and presses down on the wound, biting his tongue. Gotta...gotta keep going. He limps away through the room and out, down the hall...just to the door...

The blood’s seeping down his side and into his pants. He can see it dripping onto the floor now too. Fuck. Someone’s going to see that.

Once he’s out of the building he does his damnedest to saunter away, clutching his side as fresh blood seeps out with each move he makes. The blood loss is making him lightheaded. But if he stops for even a moment, they’ll find him. But where the fuck is he going to go, even? There’s nowhere to hide in this godforsaken place. His eyes dart around him, scanning for any nooks and crannies in the darkness of night. There are no other doors close enough. He doesn’t know how many of that guy’s friends were skulking around, either. He could easily walk right into a trap. His hands shake violently.

Then he spots it.

A ditch with a large drainage pipe. That’d do.

He slides down the dry earth, grunting with pain as it pulls his skin. He slinks right into the drainage pipe. It’s beyond filthy, coated along the bottom with years upon years of dried god only knows what. But he plops himself right into it and takes a moment to breathe. It hands are now slippery. His sweatshirt is so damp and heavy that when he leans up against the metal of the pipe, it slides down and hits it with a wet smack.

He peels back his sliced shirt and finally gets a good look at the cut--but he doesn’t stare for long, quickly turning away with a pained wince. God damn. It was sloppy as hell, jagged, and exposes his insides for the whole world to see. And when the air touches it, his toes curl.

His vision’s fuzzy. That’s not good.

Heavy, loud footsteps stomp overhead. He inhales sharply. The thug’s friends yell out curse words and something in Orrenese. He stills himself and stops breathing. More footsteps, though they’re slower. From outside the drain he can hear them--they’re close. So close.

“Where’d he go?!”

“He couldn’t’ve gone far--y’saw that blood on the ground, yeah?”

“Zalo must’ve sliced him clean open before he bit it.”

More heavy footfalls. Some conversation in Orrenese. He hears one of them come close to the hole, but he’s so far into it that the darkness alone would keep him safe. But his heart is still rattled with terror.

Silence.

Their footfalls lead away from the area. When it’s been quiet for just long enough, he starts taking in heaving breaths. The pain is coming in waves, pulsating across his body. He lolls his head side to side in an effort to keep himself from passing out. No, no. Stay awake. Stay awake, damn it. He can’t die. He’s not going to die--not when he’s got this much shit to prove to--

His thoughts drift back to Alola. God, his folks didn’t even know where he was. That’d been so exhilarating when he’d first come out to Orre. So far away that his old man would never see him, never _ touch  _ him again. Piece of shit always said he wasn’t going to amount to anything. He’d set out to prove him wrong.

Guzma bit back the urge to laugh dryly at the goddamn irony that was him bleeding out in a dirty-ass drainage pipe in a region full of gang violence. He really  _ was _ worthless, wasn’t he?

His mom would worry. She was probably worried right now. The last words she said to him--some apologist bullshit--rang in his ears. He scowls. Didn’t matter if she didn’t know. She’d get over it.

Plumeria...

Oh, god, Plumeria.

A wave of dread passes over him. That’s right, he’d been planning to go back to her. She was the one damn good thing in all of Alola. He’d been looking forward to showing her how strong he was now--that he wasn’t some scared little kid living in the shadows of everyone else anymore. That he finally had something to take pride in.  He blinks rapidly to try and get rid of the splotches in his eyes.

God, and he was gonna go out like  _ this _ . She wasn’t even going to know. Hell, she didn’t even know where he fucking was. Orre wouldn’t just put him on the news, after all. He’d be just another dead body among hundreds of dead gangsters. It’d been so long, too...would she even remember him?

Would that dumbass school friend she knew once upon a time even cross her mind…?

“...Don’t….” he whispered, the word echoing in the metal pipe. “Don’t forget….”

He can’t die like this. Not...not like this. Not without  _ her _ .

When he tries to move, he finds that his body’s gone numb. Just a bit longer. Just a little further. He’d make it. He just needed to get out of the pipe first, walk his way back… He starts shuffling toward the entrance, eyes on the wild grasses. The sides of his vision starts becoming dark. He’d get out, recover, come back twice as hard. For her.

And then they’d--


	5. Mighty Megas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plumeria is better at Guzma in gym class.
> 
> Kind of a weird little headcanon I have. Considering this verse has a transgender Guzma, Guzmania wouldn't be his birth name (plus he probably wouldn't want to use it if it was) so I was like, "Where did he pick up that name from, anyhow?" and then I thought up this; _Mighty Megas_. It's a TV show for kids in this verse. Guzma's eight when he chooses his name, what better place to get a name.

He lies in wait, target unsuspecting. 

“Guzma? Where’d ya go?”

Plumeria wanders out into the clearing, her hair tied up in bunches not too dissimilar to Buneary ears. Guzma is silently grinning to himself as she strays just a bit close to his hiding spot, and then-- 

He leaps out of the woods and onto his friend, who shrieks in surprise when he bowls her over. 

“Ha!” he yells triumphantly, giving her several bops to her shoulders with his special Armaldo armor sock’em boppers--which just have colored cardboard taped to the sides--for good measure. “It’s the hated boss who beats ya down and beats ya down, and never lets up! Yeah! Big bad Guzmania’s here, I’mma steal all the Mega Stones in the world!” 

Plumeria lets out a gasp, clearly faked, and bops his face with her own set of boppers. Its enough to push him back and allow her to escape to the other end of their “sparring” field. She takes up a fighting stance, boppers out in front of her like she’s full and ready to beat him up the second he approaches. 

“Y’ain’t never gonna get away with this!” Plumeria shouts. “ _Mighty Mega Evolution_!”  

It’s not as amazing as the show’s Mega Evolution transformation sequences; in fact all Plumeria does is take off a bopper to lift her “Mega Stone”--a large marble they painted--and let down her hair--which is filled with scrunchies to mimic Mega Lopunny’s ears. She slips the bopper back on her hand and rushes at Guzma. 

“Eat this, Guzmania!” she shouts, bopping his chest roughly. “Dizzy Punch!”

“Hahaha! Not this time, Azalea! Y’ain’t never gonna defeat me!” Guzma yells as he does his best to dodge her punches and fire his own back. “Crush Claw!!” 

She manages to dodge it by leaning backwards and falling to the ground. As he return-fires, she rolls on the ground. His giant inflatable fist collides with the dirt. Plumeria scrambles to her feet and bops his back. 

The fight continues with them racing around the dirty field laughing and shrieking as they bop each other repeatedly all over. But the fight does eventually come to an end when Plumeria manages to trip Guzma. When he tries to get up, she just sits right on top of him with a smug look on her face.  

“Ugh--Plumes, get offa me!” Guzma says, his face in the grass. “Ya big fat butt’s squishin’ me!” 

“Not til ya say it.” 

“Nooooo…’m not gonna.” 

“ _Say it_.”  

Guzma groans loudly and then says, “How could I have been beaten by a kid? Me, the great Guzmania?? I’ll getcha for this, Azalea! You an’ all’a ya little friends!” 

Plumeria seems very satisfied with this. She immediately gets off of him and stands up. Her sock’em boppers drop from her hands and into the dry dirt at her feet. He glares up at her from the grass.

“Aww, c’mon, how come ya always win…” Guzma grumbles. 

“‘Cause I’m better than ya in gym class,” she says simply, a triumphant grin on her face as she pulls the countless hair scrunchies out. 

“Now ya just rubbin’ it in,” he says, taking off his boppers. “One’a these days Guzmania’s gonna win an’ all the Mighty Megas are gonna know how scary he is.” Plumeria gives him a skeptical look and he frowns. “He is!” 

“Guzma, he’s like, the sidekick villain,” she replies. “He’s cool but he ain’t gonna win no fights. He doesn’t even have a Mega Evolution.” 

“Tch…” 

He picks up a stick lying in the grass and draws in the dirt. Guzmania the Armaldo was the only bug type on Mighty Megas that wasn’t mindlessly evil. He was gonna have his day someday. Hopefully. Plumeria did have a point, though. While Armaldo was strong and cool, all the heroes beat him every time. There wasn’t ever much of a chance for him. 

Though, perhaps... 

“Well if he ain’t gonna win, then _I’m_ gonna win,” he said with a snarky grin. “I’m gonna beat everyone! Guzmania’s gonna be the big shot boss’a everyone!”  

Plumeria covers her mouth and giggles. 

“Still can’t believe ya named yourself after the Armaldo.”

“Shut up, Plumes! It's a cool name!”


	6. In The Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just have to avoid people.
> 
> No real warnings apply. Just a little moment in time.

There was a time and place for everything. Right now, Guzma’s time and place was in the middle of Lush Jungle.

It wasn’t often that he came out to Akala Island. In all honesty, there wasn’t a whole lot there for him–outside of the Wimpod cove, that is. But he was feeling like he needed a change of pace, so he hiked out into the wilderness with his Pokemon for some fresh air. A bit of time away from other people would do him good.

The jungle is teeming with life; Trumbeak screech from the trees and various smaller wild Pokemon rustle through the tall grass. Guzma stays on the path, holding his sweatshirt over his shoulder. It’s way too hot to wear the thing in here, so he’s carrying it instead. 

Scizor walks at his side, warily sizing up the area around them as if something is going to jump out. Its claws are in front of it, held at the ready the second something attacks.

“Relax,” Guzma says to it as he stakes out a good spot to sit down. “Know y’ain’t been in here before, but there ain’t nothin’ in here we can’t handle.”

Still, Scizor seems on guard. It’s always on guard, because it has absolutely zero chill left in it. But, he supposes he can’t blame it given where he got it from. He plops down underneath one of the larger trees and rests his back against it. After the long walk up to this part of Akala, it feels good to rest in the shade a while.

He can hear something scratching at the dirt near him. Probably a Paras. Those live around here, don’t they? He can’t remember. It’s not a bad sound and he actually finds himself listening to it intently. It’s probably looking for seeds or hidden fruit buried in the undergrowth.

People. People are tiring. But Pokemon? They don’t give a shit about the shit he has to deal with. They don’t give a shit about what he’s done. 

A Trumbeak somewhere over his head belts out another chain of calls. A few Pikipek follow with a much softer birdsong. Scizor stares up into the tree with narrowed eyes. If there was one thing him and Scizor had in common, and could agree on without a doubt, it was a dislike of birds. Not that the noise was particularly bad, but it was clearly bothering his Pokemon. He watched Scizor with one eye open as it clenched its pincers together.

“Ay…Ya remember the old days when ya still were tryin’a kill me every time I let ya out? We’ve come a long way, yeah?”

Scizor looks away from the treetops and turns toward Guzma, face unreadable. It was always so damn hard to tell what this Pokemon was thinking or feeling. He pats the ground beside him.

“C’mere. Sit down. Chill out a bit.”

His Pokemon stares at him without budging. Then it looks back up at the trees as the trilling of the Pikipeks comes around again. Guzma is about to say something to it again when it steps toward him and sits down beside him. It focuses its gaze on its trainer. Guzma offers it a grin in exchange.

“There y’are. Ain’t so bad just relaxin’ outside, is it?”

Again, there’s no clear response from Scizor. Its eyes wander around the scene, from tree to tree, and they fall upon a set of pink mushrooms growing alongside some tree roots. It blinks curiously, but this time allows its arms to rest on the forest floor. At least it seems a little more relaxed now. 

He relaxes his shoulders and leans his head up against the mossy surface of the tree with a long, noisy sigh. A breeze sweeps through the trees, rustling them gently. The Paras in the distance seems to have found whatever it was digging for, as the soft sound of a pair of mandibles crunching something can be heard behind him. 

Bills, relationships, money,the bustle of the city, his past…being this far from civilization, it’s almost as if none of that matters anymore. He finally has a moment to breathe.

The grass shakes roughly. Something’s racing through it. Scizor hums. Guzma’s eyes open wide.

–A Lurantis leaps out of the weeds, eyes narrowed into slits, its front legs poised to attack. It’s not a Bug-type, unfortunately, so he has little interest in catching it. But Scizor’s gaze turns fierce–but this is an expression Guzma is familiar with this time. It wants to fight just as much.

The Lurantis charges. He pulls himself to his feet and scrambles out of the way as its blades slice at the tree bark. It leaves a sizable cut. He’s grinning as the Pokemon jumps back and drops into a battle position again. Scizor leaps in front of its trainer and opens its pincers wide, ready to attack. It’s not often that they fight wild Pokemon anymore. But hey, a little practice won’t hurt.

“Damn, this lil’ guy’s just askin’ for it, ain’t he?” he says to Scizor with a laugh. “Let’s show ‘em what we got! X-Scizzor!”


	7. Lumpy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guzma finds a Grubbin in his yard.
> 
> Warning for Pokemon death and death mentions, though there's nothing gruesome or in-depth.

There was a Grubbin in a shallow hole in his yard. A big, chubby Grubbin gorged on roots, presumably from the neighbor’s berry farm. 

Normally there weren’t a lot of bugs in his backyard–his father usually had some sort of pesticides on the lawn. But this Grubbin seemed content to wander through it like it was no big deal. It was blissfully unaware of Guzma until he pounced on it.

“Ha! Gotcha!”

It squeaked and squirmed under him, mandibles trying to reach the dirt for a quick escape, but Guzma held it aloft. Nope. It wasn’t going anywhere.

He didn’t have any Pokeballs on him, so he settled for a green plastic bucket by the garden hose with a big, flat rock over it until enough couch-diving and under the bed searching produced the right amount of spare change for a regular, average Pokeball. He’d spent all his allowance on Wimpod’s special Ultra Ball.

He rolled the ball around in his hands as he sat on his bed, a satisfied smile on his face. Wimpod chittered beside him, eyes fixated on the ball with a curious stare. Guzma glanced at it and lifted the ball a bit.

“Wanna see it?”

A trill of encouragement. He released Grubbin out into the room.

In hindsight, letting Grubbin out in his bedroom was a terrible idea; the very first thing it did was try–and succeed, somewhat–to dig a hole right through the wall under his mattress. Which had him scrambling to pull it back out before it tunneled into the drywall. Guzma let it burrow in his blankets instead.

 

* * *

 

Grubbin’s name was Lumpy. 

Guzma thought it was an accurate description of him. Lumpy ate way too much for its own good and soon was a giant lump of a bug. When he set out on the trials, Lumps enjoyed tunneling into his sleeping bag with him. He opted to stick it in the hood of his sweatshirt while he traveled and Lumpy seemed to take to it. This worked out great until he evolved into a giant rectangular bus without wheels.

Much unlike the squirming, quick-to burrow Lumpy the Grubbin, Lumpy the Charjabug was slow and awkward. But this didn’t stop Guzma from carrying it around anyway. Besides. Charjabug evolved into Vikavolt.

“Hey, Lumpy, when’re ya gonna evolve, anyhow?”

He pondered it over a can of cold ravioli he found in the bottom of his backpack. Lumpy was sat in his lap, occasionally being fed a cold piece of ravioli. It chirped at him, but that wasn’t much of a definitive answer. Guzma didn’t know a whole lot about Pokemon evolution, but he did know that usually Bug-types evolved fairly quickly.

Yet, despite almost all his other Pokemon reaching their final stage–the exception being Wimpod–Lumpy remained just that. A lump. A tough lump, but a lump nonetheless.

“Hmm…”

He set aside the can and dug through his bag. He unzipped the pocket where he kept all the random stuff he found on the ground. In it was a Thunderstone he’d found in a pile of rocks. He pulled it out and contemplated it. Charjabug was an Electric-type. So maybe…?

He lifted it and placed it down on Lumpy’s soft body.

…

Lumpy chirped curiously. No effect. Worth a shot. He tossed the rock back into his bag to be forgotten about. He rested his arms over top his giant squishy bug and hummed.

“It’s okay. I still like ya anyhow.”

 

* * *

 

The vigor that Lumpy gained when Guzma and his team reached Poni Canyon was extraordinary. It shook in its Pokeball until he let it out, after which it promptly started to–well, it couldn’t really crawl, it was more like an awkward beached Sealeo flop. He arched an eyebrow as it shuffled into the canyon ahead of him.

“What the heck’re ya doin’?”

Lumpy gave him no other response but a vague chattering. It began to burrow into a pile of rocky debris with a speed he hadn’t seen it use since it was a Grubbin. He took to sitting down and watching it with his Golisopod beside him. Lumpy dug itself in and once its body was fairly deep within the hole, the rubble collapsed behind it–which startled Guzma.

“–Lumpy?”

No response. In a panic, he hurried to the pile and started to dig it out. Golisopod let out a low grumbly cry and started to help, claws working like shovels.

“Ay, ay, it’s alright, Lumpy, we gonna getcha out–!”

As he moved a particularly large rock out of the way, the entire pile of rubble quaked. He flinched. The rocks shifted and fell on what seemed their own accord. Golisopod seized its trainer by the shoulders and dragged him back, much to his protest.

“Wait, wait, what about–”

–A flash of light from the cracks in the pile. A giant pair of mandibles shot up from the gravel. Guzma’s eyes widened. From the rubble climbed a freshly evolved Vikavolt, its brand new carapace gleaming in the sunlight. Looks like Lumpy knew something that he definitely didn’t. The grin on his face stretches ear to ear.

Vikavolt-form Lumpy was huge. Big enough to grasp him by the shoulders and lift him straight up from the ground–which it did momentarily to test out its new wings. Its hook-like feet grasped him under his arms and brought him a few feet up into the air, which made him bark out a laugh.

“Guess I can’t call ya Lumpy–’cuz y’ain’t lumpy no more!”

Lumpy flies him around, a little awkwardly at first as it gets used to its new mobility, before setting him down on top of a large boulder that towered above even Golisopod. Said giant isopod looked up at its trainer and trilled worriedly. Guzma didn’t seem nearly as concerned, and snickered to himself.

“Yeah! We’re gonna crush everybody!”

 

* * *

  

Pokemon lifespans vary wildly. Many share the same number of years as their human companions. The oldest live for thousands. Bug-types, however, get the shortest end of the stick. And Vikavolt, for all their power and prowess, start to slow down a few years after eclosion. 

Somehow, this never occurred to Guzma.

Lumpy’s power in battle was unmatched by all, save for Golisopod. It could deliver dangerously powerful Thunderbolts and Bug Buzzes. Between the two Pokemon, Guzma was nearly unstoppable in battle.

By the time he was fourteen, Lumpy’s behavior started to become strange. He couldn’t take it for walks with him as long. It always would cease flying by his side and insist on crawling awkwardly along him at a certain point. Eventually, he had to resort to carrying it on occasion. It stopped being enthusiastic for battles. And that’s when he started to get worried for it.

“What’s’a matter, buddy? Ya gettin’ sick?”

Lumpy didn’t respond. It’s mandibles sputtered a weak electric charge, like the last Thunderbolt it’d given off had sapped all its strength. It was resting on the ground now, with Guzma stroking its carapace. The Vikavolt had since lost its sheen with time, and now it was a duller green.

“S’alright, you wanna take a break, s’fine,” he offered. Lumpy eyed him weakly. “Maybe we oughta hit up the PokeCen real quick, yeah? Maybe they got somethin’ for ya there.”

 

* * *

 

He didn’t want to hear it.

After the check-up at the Pokemon Center, he went home immediately and holed up in his room. He was in a daze–no, no, that couldn’t be true, could it? Lumpy was just tired, that’s all. It was working too hard.

He sat on his bed and stared down at the Pokeball in his hands. It was tempting to just keep Lumpy in there for the rest of time–in stasis, it would be just fine. If it was in there, it would be okay from now until forever. His mind filled with static. The last time anyone he knew died–well, that’d been his grandparents, and admittedly he wasn’t as close to them as he could’ve been.

To lose a teammate like this–

His throat closed up.

No. No, it was fine. The idiots at the Pokemon Center didn’t know what they were talking about.

Lumpy’s ball is set aside on his pillow and exchanged for Golisopod’s. He stares hard at it before calling his giant bug out. It fills the empty space in the room. For a moment it seems confused as to why it’s in its master’s bedroom until it sees Guzma’s expression; watery eyes and trembling lips.

Golisopod seemed healthy, happy, full of youthful energy. But he’d said the same thing about his Vikavolt just a few weeks prior. He sniffs.

“…You…ain’t gonna die, too, are ya?”

His Pokemon chirps worriedly at him and extends a claw to his shoulder. Guzma tries to maintain his composure for all of ten seconds–and then surges forward to hug Golisopod, finally breaking down into quiet, shaky sobs. Golisopod coos at him and carefully holds him in its claws.

 

* * *

 

He has to dig a much bigger hole than the one he found Lumpy in.

It’s under one of the bushes at the edge of his neighbor’s property. He has to be sneaky about it. He can’t do it in his own yard–as if his father would ever let him ruin their flawless grass for a  _dead bug_. The thought is sour in his mind as he covers the empty shell of a Vikavolt with topsoil and pats it down.

The same flat rock he used to contain it initially rests on top of it. He stays there under the bush for some time, knees pulled up to his chest and head in his arms.


	8. Rock Stacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hala's lessons are weird.
> 
> No warnings apply.

“Ya want me t’do  _what_?”

Hala looked to him with eyebrows raised and a smile on his face.

“I want you to stack as many of the rocks on this beach as you can. It should be a simple task for one as talented as yourself?”

Guzma opened his mouth, closed it again, and then opened it. Then, he turned his gaze downward to the many, many rocks on the beach. There were probably hundreds, if not thousands of rocks in varying shapes and sizes. The problem wasn’t so much the task at hand but the  _why_ –that is, there seemed to be none. 

“What the fuck kinda training is this, old man?” Guzma snapped at him, gesturing widely at the beach as a whole. “This ain’t even  _busy work_ , ya just makin’ me play around in the dirt! Hell–I’d rather take Hau t’ the Malasada Shop at three in the mornin’ again.”

“It is not ‘busy work’, Guzma. It is a lesson,” Hala explained, crossing his arms. “An important one. Unless…you are not up for the task?”

Oh, this old fucking man…he knew just what to say to get him riled up. Guzma’s eyebrows knitted together and he sent Hala a scathing glare. Then, he trudged through the sand barefoot and approached one of the larger stones.

“Oh I’ll stack ya fuckin’ rocks, old man. Gonna stack ‘em _real good_.”

“I look forward to seeing this.”

With a loud huff, Guzma hauled one of the rocks straight out of the dirt. He glanced around him for another rock–which he soon found in the form of a larger flat one. He set the rock in his hands on top of the other. It wobbled a little but stayed. He snickered and looked back at Hala, who was seated comfortably on the grass.

“Ha! See? Easy.”

Hala simply watched and gestured for Guzma to continue. He rolled his eyes and picked up another rock. Fine. Whatever. The old man wanted piles of rocks, so be it.

He set the rock on top of the stack. It immediately rolled off. He frowned and placed it back on. It refused to stay. As he tried it a third time, the unsteady tower collapsed completely, each rock plopping into the sand with a dull thud. He stood there with a scowl on his face.

…

 _Inhale_. Exhale.

Okay. No need to get mad. It’s not a big deal. He’d just stack some different rocks. Leaving the rocky failures alone, he found some different rocks to stack on the flat rock. However, within two minutes of the last one toppling, the second tower was gone.

And the third. 

And the fourth. 

By the fifth one, he was just chucking the rocks straight into the water.

“All these rocks are fucked up!” he yelled at no one in particular.

That was about when Hala stood up from the grass and approached him. He put a steady hand on Guzma’s shoulder. Said person flinched and glanced down at him with narrowed eyes.

“Bet you think this is funny, huh? Ya just  _live_  for embarrasin’ me.”

Hala opened his other hand and extended it to Guzma. He looked at it, then at the rock in his hand. Hala said nothing, and his face was calm. Fucking hell, Hala. With a huff, he handed the rock over roughly.

“Tch. I’d love t’ see ya stack some of these fuckers…”

While Hala didn’t reply, his actions spoke louder than words. He approached the flat rock that Guzma had been trying to stack on and examined it quietly. Then, he placed the smaller rock on top of it. Yet it wasn’t that simple–he turned it on its sides, testing it carefully, until finally it sat still without budging. With the rock secured, he picked up a second, a third, a fourth. He took quite a while, but the rocks always stayed.

Guzma had to sit down. This was memorizing–he hated to admit that  _rocks_ were interesting, but…good god, the old man had them going every which-way without them falling. They didn’t even  _budge_.

“…The fuck kinda shit you on, Hala?”

With one final rock placed, Hala turned back to him with a smile.

“What I was trying to teach you,” he began, standing back up. “is a lesson in patience, Guzma.” He eyed his tower fondly. “Though the rocks may be oddly shaped, with a little time and patience, they can still find balance.”

And that sounded like something off of a shitty motivational calendar. Yet, the old man hand a point. He dragged his hands down his face. Hala gestured toward one of the larger rock piles.

“Go on, try it again.”

Guzma had half a mind to just take off. This was damn stupid. Alola’s toughest trainer out in the middle of nowhere…stacking rocks. He shuffled through the sand, toes dragging in it as he went. This was  _so_  stupid. Part of him wanted to knock down Hala’s rock pile out of spite but also he didn’t want the old man to fucking suplex him.

He approached a square-ish looking rock. Good enough. A rock nearby it looked kinda like a lumpier Nosepass. That’d do. When he went to place it down, he paused. He turned it around in his hands, looking at the way it was shaped, all the little lumps and grooves. Once he found the best side, he placed it on top of the other rock. 

It stayed. However, he wasn’t in the clear yet.

Another rock, this one looking like…a rock. It didn’t look much of anything. But there was a little notch in it that looked as though it would fit perfectly on top of the awkward Nosepass rock. It did.

“Check me the fuck out!” he called back to Hala, pointing at his tiny tower. “Ya boy’s stacked! Easy peasy!”

…Seconds later, he bumped the tower, sending it toppling over, and with it went what little confidence he had gained. Hala approached him again and clapped slowly.

“It was a start,” he said. “Admittedly, it is not a skill one can learn in an hour.”

“…Then why the hell you put me up to it?” Guzma asked, glaring at Hala.

Hala let out a hearty chuckle.

“Perhaps I simply ‘live for embarrassing you’?” he responded. Guzma frowned. He lifted up the Nosepass-looking rock and threw it toward the sea. It landed with a  _ker-plunk_. “…That was a joke, Guzma. I was joking.”

“Could’a fooled me.”


	9. Monsoon Rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kukui and Guzma get caught in the rain.
> 
> No warnings apply.

The rain caught them off guard. In almost no time it went from a sprinkle to a deluge. The trek from Lush Jungle to Akala’s Kahuna would have to be put on hold.

“Aww man!” Guzma exclaimed, holding his sweatshirt overhead in a poor attempt to keep himself dry. “What the heck! It was all sunny just a second ago!”

“Guess that’s just how it goes out in the wild wilderness, yeah?” Kukui replies, which earns him an eye roll from Guzma. Kukui tips his hat a bit to try and see through the rainy jungle. “This is pretty bad, though. Can we really get back to the Pokemon center through this…?”

“Um…”

Guzma looks around, squinting. It’s hard to tell which direction they came from with all the tall grass. The water falling through the breaks in the trees doesn’t really help either. He hums, takes a few steps–then turns in another direction. Was it that way? But maybe it wasn’t, and then they’d be even more lost in the jungle.

“…I ‘unno,” he says, defeated. “Everythin’ looks the same…”

“Oh! I know!” Guzma looks back at Kukui, ho rushes past him. “There was a tree just a lil’ ways back, yeah? With a big hole in it? We could hide in there for a little while until the rain’s not so bad.”

At the very least, it sounds less bad than wandering around in a soaked jungle full of mud. Kukui gestures to him to follow, and Guzma reluctantly follows. 

A short distance further back into the jungle and they find said tree, which has a little alcove under its gargantuan roots big enough to shield them both from the rain. The two boys tuck into it and shake off a bit as they settle into the dry area. Guzma drops his jacket, which is now heavy with water, and it lands with a wet smack against the ground. He shudders and holds his arms.

“Ugghhh…” Guzma shivered. “I’m so cold. My jacket’s soaked…”

Without a second thought, Kukui slips off his jacket and passes it over. Guzma looks at him, shocked, but accepts it.

“You ain’t got no shirt on now,” he states plainly. “Ya gonna get sick ‘r somethin’.”

“It’s alright! Gotta be fit and strong for the trials, yeah?”

To emphasize this, Kukui flexes his skinny, flabby little arms as if he was the world’s greatest strongman. Guzma giggles at him as he starts to pose and shoves him lightly.

“Who ya tryin’a fool? Ya arms are all squishy, Kooks!”

“I do a lotta climbing!” Kukui counters. “Someday these arms are gonna look great!”

“Tch! Ya wish.”

Rain continues to pour around them, but evades their little hideaway. Guzma shuffles under the jacket, eyes on Kukui. After a few minutes, Kukui, too, begins to shiver. Guzma stifles an annoyed sigh. For a moment he debates whether or not to give the jacket back–before he comes up with another idea that makes his heart skip a beat.

With a bit of hesitance, he scoots closer to Kukui until they’re squished together and throws one half of the jacket over his shoulders too.

“Th–There, now we both ain’t gonna be cold,” Guzma said confidently.

“Oh,” Kukui responds, and Guzma feels his face heat up with embarrassment. 

This isn’t…weird, is it? 

They’re just–friends–and it’s cold–whatever–

“Good idea!” Kukui says with a smile. “My jacket’s big enough for both of us.”

“Y-Yeah…”

The patter of rain continues overhead, but it’s a lot less cold and a lot less bad. Perhaps the Kahuna can wait a while longer, at least until Guzma stops feeling so comfortable leaning on Kukui’s shoulder.


	10. Episode 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guzma watches TV. Yes, I made an entire false TV show for this character.
> 
> No warnings apply.
> 
> Art provided by [my friend Koi](https://iiciumz.tumblr.com/post/167951010813/the-difference-between-you-and-me-i)!

Guzma had a deep, heartfelt love for Grubbin-shaped chicken nuggets. 

There was nothing quite so satisfying as was sitting in front of the oven salivating over a baking sheet covered in half a dozen crusty, greasy, meaty little gifts from Arceus. It was Saturday, which meant two things; no school, and a new episode of Mighty Megas came on at twelve-thirty.

Since Dad wasn’t home, he could park himself in front of the TV on top of his slowly-flattening Rowlet cushion–which was fine, he never really liked it anyhow–and stare wide-eyed at the TV until his show came on. The channels had the usual line-up of other cartoons, but for this particular morning he decided to sit through a random episode of Power Rangers to kill some time.

But oh man. Ohhh man, was he ever jittery. It was only two more episodes until the season finale of Mighty Megas and he was hyped. In the last episode, the team had taken down a fearsome Mega Metagross. He only barely paid attention to Power Rangers as he mentally went over the past few episodes…

– _Ting_!

Twelve-thirty. The Grubbin nuggets were done.

He switched the channel and immediately scrambled to the kitchen to retrieve his food. The theme song started in the background…

 _Go, go, go!_  
Mighty, Mighty Megas, ho!  
Hold aloft Mega Stones high…

It took him several seconds to pile the nuggets onto a plate and skid across the floor in his socks. He realized a bit too late he’d forgotten the sauce…oh well. He crunched down on a nugget anyway.

On this episode, the team was taking on a Mega Aerodactyl. The frightening Pokemon was the master of the skies and one of the wicked Mewtwo’s goons. The team–Hazel the Torchic, Ollie the Mudkip, Yarrow the Riolu, Violet the Pidgey, Sia the Ralts, and Azalea the Buneary–faced off against the Aerodactyl–whose name it took Guzma exactly two seconds to forget. Much unlike Metagross, and Tyranitar before it, Aerodactyl was giving the team trouble with its Stone Edge and Sky Drop attacks.

His eyes were glued to the screen as one-by-one each of the team fell down and transformed back from their Mega states to their first-stage Pokemon forms. When Aerodactyl came down in what seemed like the final attack–

–The attack was blocked by a familiar pair of dark blue scythes. Aerodactyl was blown back, a bit disoriented, and then its gaze centered on the newcomer; it was Guzmania the Armaldo, and he looked ready to fight. Behind him, Phlox the Croagunk and Bud the Trubbish scurried into the scene to start treating everyone’s wounds.

From the other side of the screen, Guzma’s grin was stretching ear to ear.

 _“What?!”_ Aerodactyl screeched.

 _“It’s Guzmania!”_ Ollie called out.

 _“And the Poison Pair!”_ Sia chimed in.

He’s not sure how it happened, slowly but surely, perhaps, but this one singular enemy character had become his absolute favorite (it it wasn’t obvious by now how he’d named himself that), and every single appearance had him reeling. He almost wanted to call Plumeria, but he didn’t care move.

Guzmania took several steps forward and struck a pose.

_“What are you staring at? Your opponent is me!”_

Mega Aerodactyl screeched with fury and began its second assault. Now at this point in life, Guzma didn’t know a whole lot about type advantages. But he did know one thing: if you put a bug under a rock, it would get smashed. His eyes followed their movements as they dashed around the field, striking each other with pinpoint precision. 

Rock Blasts and Stone Edges going this way and that–as the onslaught continued, Aerodactyl became more and more enraged until–

_“Enough of this! Rock Slide!”_

The Rock Slide attack pummeled down upon Guzmania–a critical hit. The Grubbin nugget in Guzma’s mouth dropped back onto the plate. The Armaldo was covered in a thick pile of castle rubble. There was no movement.

_“Guzmania!”  
_

_“No!”_

_“Kihihihi! Looks like the little bug got smashed!”_  The Aerodactyl cackled.  _“That’s right, crawl back under your rock! Come back when you’ve got a Mega Evolution!”_

Still there was no response. The entire field, the entire show–even Guzma’s house went dead silent. After all those episodes, was Guzmania really…?

–A rock toppled from the pile. Then, more came loose. Soon, the familiar shape of Guzmania emerged from under the Rock Slide.

_“What?! Impossible!”_

Guzmania lifted himself up from the ground, battered and covered in wounds. The Aerodactyl gawks in surprise as Guzmania got up to his feet and looked it dead in the eye.

 _“It’s weaklings like you that just rely on their little gimmicks to win…That’s what I thought about these kids, too…”_  he grumbled out, voice still steady despite the injuries.  _“…But I get it now. Real power comes from yourself. And nobody can tell you how you gotta be you. The difference between you and me…”_

Guzmania’s scythe arms raise up in an attack formation and he released a thunderous bellowing roar into the air. The sound echoed off of the castle walls and made the hair on the back of Guzma’s neck stand on end.

                        

_"I don't need **anything** to beat you down!"_

Guzmania strikes at Aerodactyl with some powerful Rock Blasts, one after the next. Aerodactyl screeches and tumbles from the air, straight to the ground. There, the fight continues, going on and on until eventually Guzmania delivers one final attack–X-Scissor. Guzma’s eyes were wide and he had a toothy grin on his face as Armaldo lets out another bellow and Aerodactyl faints, down for the count.

The Mighty Megas got up from the ground, fully recovered from the help…just as Guzmania topples to the ground.

 _“Guzmania! Are you alright?!”_  Hazel called out.

 _“Heh. That guy was just all talk,”_  Guzmania said.  _“All those flying types are is talk…no offense, Pidgey.”_  Violet seemed to take no offense from this.  _“Go on then. You got bigger Corphish to fry. I’ll be fine.”_

The group exchanges glances with each other and then look at Guzmania, who gestures weakly with his claws. They all nod to each other and wander off, leaving Phlox and Bud to care for the fallen Armaldo. Then, they turn their attention toward the middle of the castle, where Mewtwo was waiting…

##  **_TO BE CONTINUED …_ **

He sits there, staring at the screen as the show slowly fades away to commercial. Guzma is still jittery from that fight scene–after enough episodes talking down Armaldo, he was living seeing it finally see the spotlight. Any Grubbin nuggets on the plate had long since gone cold, and yet their enjoyment was not lost. Cold? No problem. He was too excited to care.

 _Now_  he was going to phone Plumeria.


	11. Grilled Cheese

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps Hala isn't as gentle as one may think.
> 
> No warnings apply. Blocked out parts are for dead name/pronouns. 
> 
> Niwa is Hala's son and my friend's OC.

Iki Town was a bit of a walk from Route 2, but from the Trainer’s School it was only half that. Which is why Guzma tended to head to Hala’s place almost immediately after school. The second the bell rung, he was racing across the pavement and off down the dirt path leading him to Iki Town.

As he ran along, the bouncing of his hood woke Lumpy, who poked his head out from Guzma’s sweatshirt and held tight to his shoulder. He dodges a few older people walking in the road and swerves to avoid a Mudsdale passing by.

Unlike Hau’Oli, Iki Town is small and quiet and completely surrounded by wilderness. All the buildings are old and there’s still a lot of weird old traditions Guzma doesn’t really get (but old man Hala won’t shut up about). He pays no real mind to any of the town’s scenery as he passes through the gate and just runs straight up the steps leaving further into the town.

He almost runs straight through Hala’s door. Almost. But he doesn’t want Hala to yell at him, so he waits and knocks.

Rather than Hala answering the door, it’s Niwa.

“Oh, hey, ▇▇▇. You’re a little early today.”

“I–Yeah,” Guzma says, shifting on his feet. “Is Master Hala around?”

“He just went out. Feel free to hang around in the meantime.”

Niwa opens the door wide and Guzma rushes in without a second thought. His schoolbag gets dumped by the door and Guzma plops down on Hala’s couch with a grin on his face. He looks around the room curiously at all of Hala’s things. The old kahuna has so many strange little trinkets. And also a bowl of candies out on the table.

“Hungry?” Niwa calls.

“Starvin’!” Guzma replies.

“I was just about to make a late lunch. Any requests?”

Guzma just grins and says, “Ya know what I want!”

“Alright. One grilled cheese–with extra cheese–coming up.”

As Niwa gets to work in the kitchen, Guzma pulls Lumpy from his hood and lets the Grubbin rest in his lap. He wants to let his Wimpod out, too, but the last time he did he got in trouble after it ate out of the trash.

“How’s school?”

Guzma shrugs. “It’s not as fun as bein’ here.” 

“Oh?” He hears the pan sizzle as a sandwich is flipped over. “Don’t you have any friends there, though?”

“Just a couple.” He presses back into the couch. “I see them outside’a school a lot so it don’t really matter.”

Niwa doesn’t reply. Lumpy inches off of Guzma’s lap and onto the couch next to him. He hears Niwa shuffle around the kitchen, take out a couple of plates, and cut a sandwich in two. Guzma sighs.

“Don’t see why I gotta go t’both when Hala’s teachin’ me everything they’re teachin’ me,” he speaks up again. “He knows waaaay better than they do–”

**_Clack._ **

Niwa sets the plate down with a bit too much force and makes Guzma jolt. For a moment Niwa’s eyebrows are furrowed and he has a small frown on his face. Niwa doesn’t usually look this serious.

“Hala doesn’t know everything, ▇▇▇,” Niwa responds. “There’s plenty your other teachers can help you learn without his guidance.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Guzma picks up half of the sandwich hesitantly, not taking his eyes off of Niwa. “Everyone says Hala’s super wise and super smart and all that. Don’t think none’a my teachers is like that.”

There’s an emotion on Niwa’s face that Guzma can’t quite place. Niwa says nothing, shakes his head, and goes to eat his own hot sandwich. Guzma watches him curiously as he nibbles away, wondering for a moment if he’d said something wrong. 

Then, he hears Niwa sigh.

“Just…don’t take everything he says to heart,” Niwa replies. “Sometimes he has good advice, sometimes he doesn’t.”

“…’Kay.”

Guzma proceeds to shove the rest of the sandwich half into his mouth. He doesn’t mind Niwa, not really. He’s kinda weird, but he’s nice. And he knows how to make pretty good grilled cheese sandwiches.

Moments later, the front door opened wide and Hala walks in. Guzma’s eyes widen, he grabs the remaining half a sandwich, and he hurries to him.

“Master Hala!” he calls. “I’m ready for some trainin’!”

“You’ve certainly gotten here early, ▇▇▇. How fortunate!” Hala scratches his mustache. “Why not go for a jog? Perhaps a brisk twenty laps around Iki Town will serve a suitable warm-up.”

Guzma groans loudly. “What–?”

“It is good to train one’s Pokemon and one’s body as well.”

Holding back a groan, Guzma goes to the door and slips out of it. Twenty laps?! He just ran all the way out here! He sits out on the porch and finishes his sandwich as quickly as he can–

“I should’ve said thirty laps,” Hala says. Guzma looks back toward the door. “If ▇▇▇ ever hopes to be successful in the Island Challenge–”

“Isn’t that a bit much?” he hears Niwa say. “You’ve been pushing ▇  so hard lately.”

“Oh? Is ▇  _your_  student, Niwa?” Hala snaps. “That child needs  _discipline_.” Guzma winces when he hears it. “If you have any  _other_  complaints, I’d love to hear them.”

Whether or not Niwa says anything after that, Guzma doesn’t know. He gets off of the porch and sets out for the area just around Iki Town with a long sigh. Twenty laps, huh. At least this isn’t that bad of a discipline.


	12. Kahuna Koa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people are just awful.
> 
> Koa is my OC for the former Kahuna of Ula'Ula. The in-game lore says something about an ex-kahuna leading Team Skull and subsequently being struck down by the Tapu, so I went ahead and made a backstory for all that. His specialty is Flying-types.
> 
> No warnings apply.

–A Charjabug is flung across the field, hits the ground, and rolls backward. Guzma yells and runs to its side.

“Lumpy!” he calls to it as he pulls the injured grub into his arms. It chatters to him defeatedly. He gently strokes its soft flesh. “It’s okay, Lumpy, you did good.”

There’s a growl from the opposite end of the field. A Salamence leers at them from its perch on the bluff. He squints at it. He wants to say something about how it was unfair of Koa to use something like that in battle. But, as Koa walks up beside his Salamence, his lips stay sealed. Koa strokes the top of his Pokemon’s head.

“Didn’t I tell you? You’re pathetic,” he says with a laugh. “Bug is the weakest type of all–especially against Flying. What did you _think_  would happen?”

Guzma scowls at Koa, but then turns his gaze to the ground. He hears Koa scale the cliffs and walk up to him, slowly, chuckling as he approaches. Gravel crunches under his feet.

“Get lost, brat.”

Guzma steels himself over and looks up again.

“…I…I’m gonna challenge ya again,” he says. “We’re gonna get stronger–”

Koa’s eyes narrow and his lips press together in a fine line. He puts two fingers into his mouth and whistles loudly. In the distance, there’s a shrill, “ **KERR-KE-KA-KRAH!** ”

“You misunderstand,” Koa says. “For a weakling like you? There aren’t any second chances.”

As Guzma climbs to his feet, Lumpy in his arms, something strikes him down again. Lumpy topples again, squeaking as it lands on its back. A Mandibuzz, having flown down from the cliffs, presses Guzma down into the dirt, talons dangerously poking against Guzma’s face. His breath quickens as he looks back up at it.

Lumpy, meanwhile, is squeaking in its best attempt at being ferocious while it tries and fails to roll back over and help its trainer. Koa rolls his eyes at it and shakes his head. Then, he turns to Mandibuzz and snaps his fingers.

“Take it.”

The Mandibuzz rips the Trial Amulet from Guzma’s bag, taking part of the zipper with it. Then, it steps right over Guzma, as if he was little more than another rock in the canyon, and walks toward Koa with the amulet in its beak. Guzma’s eyes widen.

“My–!”

It snaps its beak and the wooden amulet is shattered into two pieces. They fall to the ground, where Koa grinds them into the dirt with the back of his heel, splintering the pieces even further. He snorts, and then looks at Guzma with a smug smile.

“Some people just aren’t meant to finish their trials,” he says. “It’s the harsh reality of this world. You can’t even  _dream_  of being strong if  _this_  is how you’re going to go about it. You’re lucky you had me to stop you before you further embarrassed yourself.”

Guzma just stares stares with wide, horrified eyes at the shattered amulet. Lumpy, who’d since managed to roll itself over, inched up to its trainer. He looked down at it.

“Go on, then. Take your precious little Durant farm and go home,” Koa says.

Without a word, Guzma scoops up Lumpy and bolts in the opposite direction, tears stinging at his eyes. He can hear Koa and the Mandibuzz laughing in the distance as they flee.

So close…

They were so close to finishing…


	13. The Kahuna's Chosen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you really just need to punch a guy.
> 
> OCs and NPCs galore.
> 
> Mild violence, but nothing too explicit.

Being home in Alola was…weird.

With nowhere else to go, he ended up crashing with Plumeria and her Tutu in their little trailer just outside of Tapu Village. Unlike days gone by, nowadays he didn’t do much. Sure, he still kept up training and would occasionally battle, but Alola was eerily calm and quiet. 

He’d forgotten how boring it was.

Plumeria’s trailer was a bit cramped for him to stay in all the time, so most days he found other places to hang out; the harbor, downtown Malie, the malasada shop. The latter of which was where he was today, in one of the outdoor tables under an umbrella. His Masquerain was perched on the table, nibbling at a quarter of a malasada while Scizor stood alongside it, poking at its half curiously.

“Prolly the first time ya seen one, eh?” he says, catching Scizor’s attention. “It’s safe t’eat. Just junk food.”

Nevertheless, Scizor still was as cautious as always, poking and prodding it as it if might actually be alive. Guzma hummed and took a bite out of his own malasada.

Though he loathed to admit it, he was getting short on cash again. The ticket over to Alola cost an arm and a leg, and keeping him and everyone else fed was by no means cheap. Training wasn’t exactly making him much cash, what with Alola being quieter and with fewer trainers than other regions. Tch. He’d probably need to find a day job.

He lets out a laugh.

Him. Working a day job. He couldn’t fight the amused grin. Oh, man, if the old gang saw he’d become domestic they’d bust a gut…

“Hey! Get lost, fucker! You’re in my seat.”

Guzma pauses in chewing to look up. Two men in black uniforms and bandannas are approaching him from the right, looking agitated. He furrows his eyebrows. Black uniforms…Skull grunts? He gives the grunts–both of which are noticeably smaller than he is–a bored look. Then, he huffs, and proceeds to take another bite out of his malasada.

“Don’t see ya name on it,” is all he says.

The shorter of the two, who has some neon green and blue strips in his hair, slams his hands down on the table. Masquerain squeaks and flutters up into the air while Scizor immediately opens its pincers and falls into a defensive pose. The grunt narrows his eyes at Guzma and grits his teeth while his companion simply glares. The other patrons of the malasada shop are staring.

“You got thirty seconds to get outta that chair,” he threatens.

“’Fore what?” Guzma asks.

“Before I beat your ass, that’s what!”

Guzma takes one more malasada bite before he sets it aside and finally stands up. The grunt’s eyes widen as he slowly comes to realize that Guzma is almost a foot taller than he is. His companion takes several steps back.

“That so, ay?” Guzma asks, cracking his neck. “Like t’see ya try.”

Though the grunt is clearly second guessing himself, he stands firmly in place, glaring at Guzma. His friend taps his shoulder hurriedly while whispering, “Dude, Jake, let’s just get outta here, man,” but his friend doesn’t seem interested in listening.

He surges forward at Guzma. His fist is aimed for Guzma’s stomach, but Guzma grabs it, twists his arm, and pulls him close enough for a punch to the face. The grunt staggers back, clutching his face. But Guzma isn’t done. Three more hits before the grunt can react again.

The other grunt pulls out a Pokeball.

“Salandit, let’s–AAUGH!”

Before he can release the Salandit, Masquerain flies into his face, chattering angrily, causing him to drop the ball so he can try and swat it away. Guzma continues his onslaught on the grunt, who meagerly tries to fight back with blows to Guzma’s sides and cheeks. Compared to the people he’d been fighting before this, this guy was absolutely–

A roar bellows through the area. 

A very large Druddigon stomps in, grabs Guzma with its powerful claws, and hoists him into the air effortlessly, causing him to yelp. The grunt he was wailing on tumbles to the ground, clutching his swollen and bloody face.

“Enough!”

A man with long brown hair and dark skin walks up the steps and onto the malasada shop’s patio. While Guzma doesn’t recognize him in the least, the way the grunts’ eyes widen and how they scramble to him like he’s both their savior and worst nightmare is enough to tell him–that’s a Skull admin.

“Lehua! Lehua, this guy just up and picked a fight with us outta nowhere!” the grunt with the swollen face whines. The admin, Lehua, casts a glance toward Guzma as he tries (and fails) to escape Druddigon’s grip. “I didn’t even do anything, honest!”

“Ya filthy rotten liar!” Guzma spits out, swinging his arms in Jake’s general direction.

“Do something about him, Lehua!”

“Yeah, do something!”

“Both of you, quiet!” Lehua snaps, effectively silencing them. He steps toward Guzma, eyeing him curiously. “Now you…It takes a special kind of person to decide to mess with the Kahuna’s Chosen. Who are you?”

Guzma is silent for a moment. He wipes off some of the blood trickling out of his mouth with a laugh.

“What’s it to ya, huh?”

“Druddigon.” Said Pokemon grunts and puts Guzma back down on his feet. Guzma eyes it warily before looking back at Lehua. “We’re always in need of some good help,” he says. “Koa could use a man like you.”

The amused smile falls off his face. 

Koa. Koa could use him. Of course he could. Koa only ever gave a damn about another person if they were  _useful_  to them–his hands shake a bit with rage. Lehua eyes him with eyebrows raised. It takes him a moment, but he manages to suppress the rage. The smirk returns to his face, though there’s something dark about it.

“Koa, huh?” he asks. “Ya mean like Kahuna Koa?”

“The very same.”

This is his chance. These people–they haven’t a clue in hell who he is, do they? That dark little thought in the back of his mind that he’s suppressed for so long…that almost ten year want for revenge…

“Hm.” He taps his chin, and then after a pause, “Call me Guzma. I ain’t from around here, but if ya boy thinks he could use a capable set’a hands…”

Lehua grins. 

“Excellent. I’m sure Koa would love to have you.”

He gestures for Guzma to follow him. After recalling Scizor and calling Masquerain with a whistle, he does, a knowing smirk on his face.

“What??” Jake exclaims, scrambling after Lehua with absolute horror on his face. “Lehua, you can’t be serious! This guy’s no better than a street thug!”

“Perhaps. Yet he had little trouble throttling you in an unprompted fight,” is Lehua’s response. “Koa is looking for powerful allies, is he not? This island is teeming with weakling trainers and pitiful trial-goers. As far as I’m concerned, a little outside help with our plans isn’t a bad thing…”

Guzma largely ceases paying attention to their conversation after that point, lost in his own thoughts. Nobody recognizes him. Koa won’t recognize him. And it’ll be way too late when he realizes exactly what kind of a threat Guzma poses to his little empire.


End file.
